Leo closed his eyes with an amused smile. This charming nonsense was music to him. Meanwhile, the drunken merriment in the bailiff's house grew louder. At the sound of it, Hertha spoke her mind with a will. "It is a shame that an end cannot be put to such mismanagement. The master roams about the world, and his estates are going to ruin." "Do you think it really is so bad as that?" asked Elly, anxiously. "It is so bad that it couldn't be worse. Look at Ulrich Kletzingk's face when he rides over here. But he can do nothing. It was not he who was given full authority, but beautiful Uncle Kutowski. If I could, I would hound that fellow out of the place with a horse-whip." "Spoken like a thorough good chap," thought Leo. "I'll have her for my wife, and then they'll find there'll be the devil to pay." Yet, at the same moment, anxiety on account of his neglected property weighed heavily upon his soul. The chorus of a drinking-song struck up opposite, the refrain ending in a cadence of hiccoughs. Leo's fists itched, but he controlled himself, for he did not wish to spoil the humour of the situation. "I am afraid that _he_ is there too," Elly whispered hesitatingly. Leo was all attention. "Of course he is there," Hertha laughed, with a ring of scorn in her voice; "he is certain to be wherever there is anything low going on." "Don't always wound my feelings," Elly complained. "You know how gone I am on him." "Hum! so the little one has begun already," thought Leo, and resolved to speak to her seriously, for falling in love was a Sellenthin family weakness. "You may be gone on him as much as you like," replied Hertha, "but he should be open and above board, and not sneak over here behind people's backs when he comes to see Uncle Kutowski. That is scarcely fitting behaviour on the part of one we honour with our admiration." "But what else is he to do?" asked Elly, in a troubled voice. "If mamma saw him she would tell Ulrich that he was hanging about. And the last time he only came through the park to serenade me. And that song, 'The Smiling Stars,' he composed especially for me. He told me so. And what he said about the serenade was, 'I was a little elated by wine, gracious Fräulein, otherwise I should certainly not have had the courage.' He always speaks so modestly and politely. He is quite out of the common." "Just wait, you out-of-the-common young man," Leo said to himself; "you shan't escape." At this point a dear familiar voice sent forth an affectionate warning to the children--"Come in, or you'll catch cold." It was the voice in which, as long as he could remember, his vagabond spirit had ever found rest and steadfastness.